Standing Strong
by MaverickPaxAPunch
Summary: His name is Ethan: a physical mutation since birth has left him lonely, unwanted, and he runs away to seek acceptance. Storm's niece is becmoing more out of control as her powers heighten, and Kurt and Storm try to mantain their marriage. Magneto becomes a threat again - Xavier must assemble a fresh team - but the cure has started to strangely malfunction. Set after The Last Stand.
1. Dog Days

Chapter One

Dog Days

Ethan Wells

"Fetch!" I call to Daisy as I toss the ball out into the wide open field. On four black legs, she romps after it with her pink tongue lolling out of her mouth, retrieving the rubber ball after rolling over herself a few times. Triumphantly, she returns it to me and pants at my feet. "Good girl," I congratulate, patting her head that is hot from the sun. "My turn, okay?"

I never do this in public. I don't even do it for my parents. They barely know about me. Sure, it's hard to keep it from them that something is up, but it isn't as hard to pull the wool over their eyes. I live on a farm, in a small county in Ohio. Small town, not many people around my age. I don't see a lot of kids outside of school, and seeing that it is summertime now, I see a grand total of zero people besides my family. I try to spend a lot of time away from them anyway.

I peel off my sweaty socks after tossing my Chuck Taylor sneakers into the ragweed. Daisy sits patiently, wagging her tail patiently. How a dog can be so much like a human, I have no clue. I toss my socks astray with my shoes and let my feet breathe. Finally, they are free. I literally breathe a sigh of relief as the pads of my feet touch the raw earth, no longer tied up in the canvas of my sneakers. Ahh, no more standing on my toes. My feet are not what anyone in my town would call average. Not even "human". They aren't too far off from Daisy's. With each toenail a dog-like claw, my werewolf feet are anything but ordinary. I crack my toes and rub my thin ankles, scratching the brownish fur with the retractable claws that are growing out of my fingernails.

Daisy whines. I've known about my "condition" since I was born. I knew I was different; something that is considered wrong in my home town. They don't like different – the old hags will pass on the gossip like a dandelion seed on the wind. I keep this to myself, but I don't know where to go. It seems like I just get more like – well, like an animal.

"Ready?" I smile down at my pooch, her tongue hanging out of the side of her jaw. I pick up the slobbery ball and wrap my clawed nails around it, cocking my arm back. With a snap of wind and the pull of my over-average tendons, the ball goes winding across the grassy clearing. I leap with powerful back legs, my dog-feet propelling me past my dog and into the cover of the weeds. My mind works like a locator, a GPS searching for the ball. Romping on all fours, I sail through the air as if I'm flying, breath ragged in my chest, in out, in in, out. In, out, out.

Rolling in a somersault to catch the ball, I do a flying bellyflop and cup the ball in my claws, nearly digging into the rubber material. Daisy catches up to me, panting and exhausted, whereas I am barely winded at all. "Here ya go." I toss the prize to her even though I am the winner, after all, and lay back, panting. The black pads on the bottom of my feet ring with warmth and satisfaction, covered in dust from my romp. Exhausting as it should have been, I am so full of energy that I leap up onto all fours again, crouching in the readying position. Wiggling my back legs, I take off again, dirt stirring up behind my legs.

I leap up on a tree when I reach the woods line, using it to propel myself to another tree. My ears open as if I am suddenly able to hear for the first time. I hear my own heartbeat, thump-thump, thump-thump. A bird twiddles in the trees, flapping to another tree above me as Daisy romps after me, the steady pitter patter of her legs a quiet drone, one two, three four. One two, three four. A growl erupts from my chest as I become faster, faster than any dog has ever gone before, faster than any human. The sun streaks through on my shaggy brown hair that has fallen in my face, obstructing my vision, but I don't mind – I know where I'm going by every other sense that is enhanced.

"Woohoo!" I holler in a howl-like tone, bounding up a pile of rock that has been out in these woods for as long as I remember. With the agility of an immortal, I sail over it, landing in a crouch for only a moment before bounding off again. I feel like I could just run away now, escape it all. All the ridicule, all the insulting, all the hate. Out here, I feel free. Out here, I don't feel like such a mutant.

What would happen if I don't go back home? Mom would worry about me. Dad would wear his face of disappointment, but they always knew this day was coming. They know the day is coming when I run away. I'm tired of all of the detestation, all of the loathing. I am tired of being alone. Panting, I skid to a stop at the interstate, staring at the road that could take me home that is also the road that could take me away from here. I lick my dry lips and leap to the other side of the road, waiting for my dog to follow. Is start my road to mutualism. Finally, I have the guts to go.

Kurt

_***BAMF!***_

I startle as Kurt teleports in front of me while I'm clicking down the hall in my favorite pair of black boots. I breathe heavily for a moment, placing my hand over my chest. "Nightcrawler, I swear you'll be my death."

He hangs his head and blinks his cerulean eyelids over the most golden pair of eyes I have ever seen in my entire life. A long azure tail seems to float behind him as he leaps up on the wall, his bug-like fingers and toes easily gripping onto the wallpaper as he weaves amongst the framed photos and paintings on the wall as if they are a maze. _"Sie sind zu schön, böse zu sein, schön."_ Muses Kurt as he hangs down in front of me, his faded trench coat that is dotted in rubber-looking polka dots hanging down at his arms. I look up and realize that his tail is wrapped around the light fixture that swings with his weight.

"Kurt," I reach out and ruffle my hand in his black spiked hair that hangs directly downward. "I don't know German as well as you."

"Excuse me, _Meisterwerk,"_ he crosses his arms over his chest, the tips of his elven ears twitching. "I zidn't mean to startle you."

"I know." I whisper and lean forward, pressing my chin to his upside down lips. He hops down with ease, leaving the light he was hanging from swinging as he takes his place by my side. Wearing boots, I'm a few inches taller than him, but it might also be the fact that he is blue bare foot. The sun has set, leaving the summer dawn over the aurora pinkening in the relevance of the leftover sunset. School is out for the summer, but many of the children still stay here. They have nowhere else to go – most of them have no families, or their kin want nothing to do with them. "Where have you been?"

Kurt limps after me, using his extensive tail to compensate for balance. "Ze Danger Room. I swear to you, zat place gets more and more realistic." He catches up, bounding on all fours for a moment until he leaps in front of me. "Vhere have _you_ been?"

"Off on the grounds. And prepping Cerebro for Charles…" my heels click louder when we hit the linoleum, the fabric of my orchid-sleeved shirt pulling at my skin slightly as I switch directions down the main hallway, Kurt in tow. "Kurt, have you seen Starr anywhere?"

He leaps in front of me again, continuing to scamper down the hall. _"Nein, Baumwolle_. Last I saw her vas ze dorms last night. Iz she into trouble again, Ororo?"

I sigh and lift Kurt up by his three-fingered hand, his tail wrapping around my waist with affection. "Let's try the courtyard."

Abigail Merriweather

I stand on the edge of the fountain's bench, staring at the rippling water. The tiny waves appear as if pirates of equal size could tame the breakers, and I can see the invisible ships now, dipping in and out of the sprays. Smiling, I stare down at the crystal aquatic, slowly twirling my pinky finger above the surface to make tiny whirlpools.

"Whatcha doin'?" I nearly fall into the water at the voice. I've heard it many times before. In fact, I've _tolerated_ it many times before.

"Oh, God, Artie. You scared the hell out of me." I groan, putting my hand over my heart to feel the intense heartbeat. Artie is one of the younger kids at Xavier's mansion. He's had the hugest crush on me for as long as I've been here, and he insists that we're fate, but I beg to differ. His mutation is a little less prominent than the others, but physical all the same, and the Professor says that it might develop more over time. How a blue forked tongue will become something else, I have no clue.

"I didn't know you had any hell in you." The twelve-year-old speaks with a slight undetectable accent that is made by the strange obstruction of his mutant tongue.

"Why don't you go play baseball with the other kids?" I sigh, hopping down so I am sitting with my legs crossed beside him on the bench to the fountain. I can hear two teams of kids yelling and cheering over at the baseball diamond that a few of them had requested at the end of the school year when it was almost summer. Actually, baseball isn't actually played there, it's more "mutant"ball, as Logan calls it.

"No thanks," Artie whines, hanging his head. "It isn't as fun. I can't use my tongue to do anything… the others use their powers."

"Well, use what your mama gave ya." I shrug as he scoots closer to me, trying to touch shoulders.

"Abby," he mutters. "Can I please hang out with you? Pleeease?"

"Hon," I sigh again, pushing the dark hair off his forehead. "You really aren't my type. Or my age. You're so sweet. But I really want to concentrate right now, okay?" my eyes drift longingly to the shimmering water, parts of my blonde hair falling into my face. I lean over and kiss him on the forehead, which seems to satisfy him. He leaps up and gives me one of his lovesick looks as he walks slowly away. It's so cute, yet he's more like the little brother type.

Sploosh, sploosh, goes the water from the fountain as I direct it upwards in a spiraling pattern. The crystal waves cascade down in an avalanche-like fashion as Archie sits at the base of the fountain beside me, cracking open a book and leaning his back against mine. Archie is actually my age, not to be confused with snake-tongue Artie.

"Archie, I'm trying to concentrate." I mutter under my breath, but he doesn't listen, humming as if he can't hear me at all. Sighing, I move my hands so the water splashes back into the fountain bed, creating eddies in the water and, fortunately, splashing Archie a little.

"Hey! You got some of the pages wet!" complains the boy, shaking out the soiled book as I smile with contentment.

"I told you I was trying to concentrate." I sit in the grass in front of him and start to play with the long, emerald strands, pulling them through my long fingers like hair. I can hear Archie grumbling behind me, but my eyes are now are now focused on something more important. A movement at the other end of the courtyard. I lean up to try and see; Starr Munroe. God, if I had a body like her, boys might be crawling all over me – maybe not the attention I'll _ever _be looking for, but still. Attention that _she_ is looking for. I don't really know her. She came halfway through the year during the semester, for all I know. She's Storm's niece too, which is hard to believe. They're nothing alike, not only in looks, but in personality. Starr's pale skin basically glows in the sun, and if I didn't know she was a mutant, I might mistake her for a vampire. It's a wonder she doesn't burst into flame.

Her hair is black as twelve o'clock; in fact her entire look has a nocturnal appearance. Sleek and sexy, she is one of a kind like all of us. Apparently, Storm is her only living relative, at least that's what I hear. She's a handful, poor Ororo looks ten years older whenever Starr is around. I feel even worse for Kurt, who isn't even related to her, at least not by blood.

"God," Archie says, placing his hands on top of my head and tapping a rhythm as if it's a drum. "Someone needs to send that girl off to another boarding school."

"Arch, I don't think she'd fit anywhere else." I shrug as he gets up, pacing a few steps away from my beloved fountain. "This is the last place that would take her."

"She scares me. Why wouldn't she scare any guy?" he shrugs as I follow up behind him. He pulls a wooden pencil out of his pocket and gnawing on it. Archie's mutation isn't exactly one of the more discernible ones – you would never know until he opens his mouth. Each one of his teeth are sharp and pointed as if filed, an alligator's mouth of teeth instead of a human's. Chewing, of course, is just Archie's nature. He despises his mutation, though I think he's just fine.

"Get outa my way." Starr grumbles, shoving a kid running by with her elbow. I know the kid, one that has huge bird feet that leave noticeable tracks in the dirt. I catch her as she stumbles, skinning her bony knees that stick out like knobs. The little one starts to whimper, curling up the toes of her big bird feet.

"Abby," she whimpers as if she's waiting for me to do something.

I gulp, setting the little girl on the fountain base. Starr really is pretty, her black hair all shiny and flowing down her back, so opposite of her aunt that is all sweet and protective and cotton-hair-color. I hold out my hands, sloshing the water up in a large amount, curling it into a large wave that looms a shadow over Starr. With a simple wink of the eye, I dump it over her head, splat, splat, splat, onto the gravel as it soaks from dusty gray to dirty brown. She growls in austere anger, gritting her teeth.

"You're the water girl." Her voice is grave, her long nails curling into fists. There is the crackling sound of electricity as her eyes turn a shining yellow. "Bitch, you're rainin' down the wrong alley."

Starr Munroe

"Are you _serious?"_ Aunt Ororo paces back and forth in the office that belongs to the Prof, her knuckles placed on her hips. I know when she has "fist-on-hips", she's not just mad, she is ireful, ready to decapitate me, chop my body I half, electrocute my body all the way to hell. I've seen her like this plenty of times before, but I can usually get her to forgive me by feeding her all the usual shit. "I promise, I'm gonna change", "This time will be different."

"Serious? As in my last boyfriend, or in school? Or serious about safe sex, using condoms, all that jazz."

Aunt 'Ro nearly growls, thunder clapping outside. Black clouds are beginning to roll in, I can see from the window, and my aunt grips the windowsill, leaning over so her cottony hair falls in her face, hanging her head between her shoulders. I shift awkwardly in the leather chair, still sopping wet with my clothes sticking to my body skintight. The other girl, Abby I think her name is, is slouched in the chair next to me, but somehow she still looks like she has a hanger shoved in her shoulder blades, never letting her shoulders fall slack of the corner of prim and proper. Ororo's husband, Kurt, is perched on the back of a high-backed chair that is swiveled around at the large desk, sitting on it like a bird of prey with his three-toed toes hanging over and gripping the decorative buttons. God, he's weird. I thought some of the people here were unusual, but he definitely wins the award.

"Oh, _Goddess, _Starr Munroe." Hisses Storm, the cloud-colored locks falling on her shoulder blades like fluffy vapors. "Could you just – speak to me like we aren't equals for one moment?"

"We aren't equals."

A bolt of lightning touches down outside, the clouds even darker. "NO. We are _not,_ Starr. Look what you've done!" my eyes follow hers, rolling over to that necromancer sitting beside me. The ends of her hair are singed with black, her nose and annoyingly sugarplum cheekbones tinted in black. I shrug.

"Look what she did to _me."_ I motion to my wet clothes. "These are dry clean only."

Storm throws her hands up, howling as the wind picks up. "You just don't seem to understand – this isn't all about yourself. Never have I met such a shallow person, Starr."

Her words cut me, but I don't mind. I've heard much worse in my lifetime, much, much worse. I used to live in a foster home where is was basically Cinderella, cleaning and living in the attic while the "parents" collected their money for so-called taking care of me. The Prof's mansion is the best place I've ever lived. Sadly, with a bunch of freaks. But that's what I am. A freak, just like every single one of them.

Kurt teleports next to 'Ro, leaving the nasty smelling, rotten egg scent of hell and brimstone. I guess it's just something my aunt has gotten used to. I wonder if he smells like that all the time, but I don't think so. I've smelled him before, he smells more of Irish Spring soap and pine trees. "_Stürmisch," _he murmurs softly as he places his weird bug-hand on her shoulder. He's trying to calm her down, and I don't blame him, according to the large storm that's been rolling in for the last five minutes.

"Abby, you can leave. Are you sure you're alright?" Storm turns to the priss, Abby, and she gets shakily to her feet, holding onto the back of the chair to keep her balance. Kurt leaps to her side and holds onto her arm.

"I vill take you to your room." he says, wrapping his arms around her back and disappearing, leaving me and my only family member left in the room alone.

"I hope you have something to say for yourself. Yet another scene. Luckily, only one was hurt this time… when are you going to stop causing vistas like a three-year-old? You have self-control. I know you do, sweetheart." She sighs, disappointment in her mellow voice. That's one thing I hate the shit out of; that dissatisfaction in her voice.

"I'm sorry," I say because I know that's what she wants to hear. "I'm gonna fix this, I'm gonna do better next time Aunt 'Ro."

When she looks me in the eyes, the brown pools are full of something I've never seen before. She doesn't forgive me. "Starr, sometimes I – just don't know when to believe you anymore." She pauses, leaning down so she's at my level while I'm sitting. "I love you. Nothing will change the way I care about you. But I think you need to go through some serious changes in maturity. Do you understand?"

I blink a few times. "Yeah,"

"Maybe you can earn my trust back. For now, you've already rubbed it raw enough."

I cast my eyes downward. "I'm really… I really am sorry, Aunt Ororo…"

She touches my cheekbone, pushing my dripping hair off my forehead. "I know you are. But to show me – you need to really change."

I bite my lip and say nothing.

"I think you should go back to your room and get into some dry clothes, alright?" she says softly, the same disappointment still in her voice.

"Yeah… I'm going." I nod, keeping my eyes closed for a second. I rise and brush past her, clicking to my room with wet, squeaky heels.


	2. CardShark

_**Hello! I'm sorry I forgot to leave you a note at the top of the first chapter, so I apologize for that. Thank you to any reviews for this story, and I really appreciate any reviews, good, bad, any help me! Thanks, you guys! I think you will like this chapter, it gets a little saucy! I also put names up when the perspective changes, hope that helps!**_

Chapter Two

CardShark

Kurt

The corridor is long and narrow, but nothing I can't see. I know my eyes _glow,_ not only to the outside looking in, but also to the inside looking out. No matter how long I live in this mansion, I will constantly get lost in these many hallways and confusing vestibules. In the illumination of my eyes, I can see a large portrait framed in the hallway; a long, narrow piece that is a canvas fresco of the Professor and his students. Jean Grey is sitting beside his wheelchair, and next to her with his arm around her shoulders is Scott Summers. I never knew the two of them well before Jean sacrificed herself at Alkali Lake. I left the school after that, for a few years. Ororo is standing behind the Professor with her fingers gently touching his shoulder, her cloudy hair pinned back. She looks happy; the only one in this picture that is still living.

I sigh and reach out, touching her face in the picture with a large indigo finger. She _does_ look blissful. Do I make her feel that way? I bite my lower lip with pointed teeth and try to decipher yes. I love her, my _Gewitter._ After I left, I went a lot of places until I realized that where she was, indeed, was my_ zuhause._ My home.

Everything is so much more difficult to find in the dark! I swish my tail behind me by habit, jumping as it connects with something, _crash!_ Oh, boy. I curl up the blue whip and lean down in the dark to inspect what I've broken. A flowery vase that was resting on a half-moon side table. Grumbling, I lean down and start to sweet up the pieces with my tail, gathering them in my large hands and finding a bathroom with the light still on to toss the pieces in the trashcan. I stand in front of the mirror.

Nightcrawler always stares back at me. It is something I will always deal with, being a mutant. My life in the circus was all but joyful, but I did learn to have fun back then. I run my three-fingered hands back through my spikey hair and stare at the blue face. Wiggling my pointed ears, I try to smile but quickly stop. Scary teeth don't look very nice in a smile. How Storm finds the man inside of me will always be baffling.

_** BAMF!**_ I dissipate and appear at the top of the spiraling staircase, luckily making it directly there even in the dark. Our room is an attic apartment, made to give Storm and I a bigger, more private dwelling for married life. Where the staircase on the other side starts to spiral down to the opposite side of the lower hall is where the staircase ends. By now, I'm a lot used to kids running up and down, bounding in and out, and slamming doors, especially now since it's summer, but tonight it is silent. The only sounds my super-human ears pick up are the crickets outside and the soft scratch of a pen coming from our room. The door is open a crack, and I push it open the rest of the way.

My wife is sitting at the desk, her back to me and her icy hair pinned up in the back. Her quill pen is scratching across the page, her breath coming in and out of her nose like tiny invisible smoke stacks. I can tell she acknowledges my presence just by the slight cock of her head, and I cross to the bed and flop down, stretching out. The Danger Room training I've been doing with the kids has put a beating on not only them, but me. Even if it's summer, some of them consider it a sport and they aren't allowed to go in without a teacher. I feel like I've been put through a towel wringer.

"You don't look good." Storm swivels around in her desk chair, pinching her lips to smile at me.

"Danger Room." I close my eyes and curl my tail around a wrung of the bedpost. "Vhat're you doing?"

She shuffles papers on the desk. "I'm finished now. Last minute papers." _Mein Gott,_ Ororo is beautiful. I knew she was from the moment I heard her voice, hanging up in the rafters of that church. Her skin is the color of coffee with creamer, almost a nutmeg color, or the hue of cinnamon baked into bread toasty brown. Her eyes are almonds, the eyes I always wished that a child of mine could have. How many times have I traced the perfect bridge of her nose, down to the small divot that rests between her upper lip and her nose? Her lips, my Lord, her perfect lips that are full and soft, glossed over with the slightest tint of pink. I sigh as she hovers over me, my tail flicking absentmindedly by my side now.

"Kurt, you're doing it again." she smiles, and I just realize that my tail has flicked its way onto her shoulder. Ah, my tail. I suppose it's a little like having a third hand, but it is more fragile, sensitive. Ororo begins to smooth her hands over the spiny thing, exploring every detail of my extra appendage. It really only helps me for balance, and I can hang my weight from it for a short while. It really helps in multi-tasking as well.

"Sorry," I blush, as much as a blue man can blush. I feel her fingers traveling down my tail while my eyes are still closed, lovingly stroking the thing that, for some reason, she loves. Tingles go up my spine through my tail as she kisses the arrowhead tip.

"You know I don't mind." She says, her smile growing wider as she unzips her jacket and teases me with the flash of her skin. Of course, it's just a ruse because she is wearing a tanktop underneath. I cock my head on the pillow.

"Are you teasing me, _süß _Ororo?" I raise one dark brow as she slides onto the bed in the swam position, wrinkling the bedclothes just the most minute bit at the end. "Because I'm sure I could impress you vith some circus tricks."

She giggles softly, sliding a hand up my leg and when I look up I meet her smile. "I doubt there's enough room in here."

I lean up on my elbow. "You could've been a legend in the circus."

"The Dumbfounding Storm?" her eyes twinkle as she sneaks up the comforter like a panther, pressing her palm to my chest and sliding up to between my breastbone. "Is that what they would call me."

_"Nein,_ my love. They vould call you ze Breathtaking Angel. Ze ringmaster vould proclaim," I mimic a ringmaster's tone, exactly the way I remember it from my childhood. "A startlingly beautiful, miraculous, surprising conundrum vith ze power of ze veather at her command! Tremble as she performs death-flouting extra-terrestrial tricks, bringing thunder down from ze very heavens, wetting your faces as you tremble in incredulity!"

My Storm smiles. "Was the circus fun?"

I shrug. "At times. Whoa." I blink a few times as her lips greet the base of my neck, the soft wetness warm at my pulse that surely quickened. Oh, no, she can feel my nervousness! But she always can. Even if she weren't kissing one of the most sensitive places on my body.

"Nightcrawler," she murmurs as my hands find her waist, pulling her halfway on top of me. "I can barely stand Starr anymore… she's – so much work. I love her, but I'm at the end of my rope."

Pulling her all the way on top of my body, my legs trapped under her weight, I kiss her hot lips that are a deep contrast against the blue skin of mine. "Vhen you are at ze end of your rope, tie a knot. Mmm." She cuts me off with a deep kiss, her lips moving against mine like thunder and lightning. Her skin is always warm – maybe it is just her mutation, but she has always just been – tepid. On the bright side, I am never cold under the covers.

The soft cotton of her tanktop brushes my fingers as my breath ruffles her hair, one of my hands roughly stroking over her shoulder as I kiss her coffee chin that is perfectly shaped, rounded for her slender, heart-shaped face. "Kurt," she whispers, but she doesn't finish the thought as my fingers wrap into her pallid hair. Breaking the kiss for merely a moment, she pulls her shirt over her head and lets the fabric slip down her back as she starts to unbutton my own shirt, a navy button-up with sleeves that cut off mid-arm.

She takes a break from my shirt and pulls my hands to her face, to hold me where she wants me, winding her fingers up in my hair and tugging tightly at the roots. Just by the way her fingers feel on my skin, she makes my mouth open, my eyes closed, making me breathe faster until I feel as if I'll pass out. The edges of my body feel like they melt into her, part of her. For some reason, I forget my own name. I am more conscious of her than I have ever been of anything or anyone else in my life; of the faint shine of almond brown under her half-closed lids, the faint scar on her cheek that has been there as long as I've known her. More than anything else, her wine-tasting lips on mine. When I lean forward and brush my lips across hers, she reaches her arms around my neck as if I'm keeping her out of twenty feet of water.

Her eyes show a moment of hesitation, then lust gives in and her lips rush forward to touch to mine again. I try to speak against her lips, interrupting the caressing of her mouth on mine. "Mm-mm," she warns, shaking her head as my clumsy, cluttered fingers listlessly pull at the pins keeping her hair back out of her face. When I toss the pins on the bedspread, her lips are already on my chest, my shirt half unbuttoned by now. She traces her lips on the tattoos that are permanently scarred in my skin in sky blue spirals and swirls, each one with its own meaning for my sins.

My tail lashes above me and wraps around her waist like a lasso – my mind wanders back to the ladies in the circus that rode shimmering ponies bareback and twirled lassos in the air, but all of my attention focuses on Ororo. Her nails slide down my thigh, wrinkling my jeans as she pulls me on top of her, and I laugh with an "Oof!", falling hard on top of her. She laughed nervously, somehow always coming off as just delightfully nervous every single time.

"Shhh," whispers Storm, "You'll wake up the kids," and she pulls the covers over our heads with a hot kiss on my lips.

Ethan

_**HONK! HONK!**_ I just nearly miss the old rumbling Chevy as I leap across the side of the road and tumble into a gutter. Daisy whines at the other side of the road, waiting for me with her black head peeking out from behind a trashcan. With a whistle from her master, she furtively slinks across the street. I've traveled so far in the past two weeks, hitch-hiking a little, riding on the backs of trailers. I've become a semi-professional drifter, just with a dog. I could never leave Daisy.

We hitched a ride with a trucker after traveling twenty miles on foot to Cincinnati, Ohio. He took us all the way to Knoxville, thankfully. It was the first time I left the state of Ohio, and the Smokey Mountains were a sight to see. The smoke resting over the tips of monstrous massifs – God, breathtaking. I wish I could have gotten out of the truck and just felt the fresh mountain air. At a tiny Citgo station, Daisy and I met a man in a rusty pickup with a huge moustache and mutton-chop sideburns that said he would take us Little Rock. I didn't even know where that was until we ended up in Arkansas.

Arkansas was hot as hell, and when my beat-up sneakers hit the concrete, I'm sure the rubber started to glue to the hot pavement. Didn't much like it there, and we rode laying low on the back of a trailer inside of a half-crushed, rusted demolition derby car. That took us all the way to New Orleans. That's where we are now.

The french quarter of New Orleans is a place I've always wanted to see, and when I stand looking up at the street sign_, "Rue du Bourbon",_ I can almost smell the crawfish and rice being fried in every club and bar on the street. All the bars here would probably shake their head at me, being a minor, but they have to have water and I'm so thirsty. Much different than my dog, who is drinking rain water out of a gutter.

"Dais," I mutter, calling her back over to me. My feet are killing me from walking around New Orleans for over three hours, especially being shoved in my sneakers for so long, and my fingernail claws are itching to come out. I chain her to a light post with my belt and itching for a glass of water, I enter a bar with a blinking sign that reads "Bourbon Pub" in an old French script.

Inside is loud and a floating Louisianan tune lifts through the air like the notes glide on the air pockets. Everything smells like booze, and everyone in here looks like a tourist, a drunk bastard, or a native. The native are leathery-skinned, some looking like alligator wrestlers and wearing cowboy hats to shade already cracked faces. I sit down awkwardly at a bar stool, my dusty sneakers hanging down.

"Kid," mutters the bar tender that has a stained rag on his shoulder and a large handlebar moustache. "Whata ya doin' in here? Where're ya parents?"

"I'll just have a water." He stares at me until I dig out a five dollar bill and lay it on the counter. "You have anything to eat too?"

"Yeah, will it be the Mac n' Cheese, or the SpaghettiO's?"

"I'm starving, just get me something." I beg, waving my wallet at him. "I have more money, don't worry."

Grumbling, he fills up a tall glass of water from the tap and slaps it on the counter. He sets a basket of something to fry and when it comes out, he sets a basket of breaded shrimp, swiping the ten dollars I laid on the counter. I scarf the shrimp down with the water, hearing a loud ruckus over a few tables. I turn around with a mouth full of food and grease dripping down my chin to see what all the commotion is. A man in a fedora and long, ear-length hair is laying down a hand of cards that looks like a winner, and half the crowd gathered around the gamblers cheer, the other half howling. I slide off the stool and get closer, leaning as if I can see better if I am that much closer.

"You're a cheat!" howls one of the men, a large-shouldered beast with a sweaty, shaved head, jabbing his finger at the face of the man that I can't see. He shakes his head, a cocky grin shoving from under the brim of his hat. The sweaty man grabs for the collar of his shirt, but I see the tiny burst of light illuminating the card, suddenly full of energy as the man flings it across the room. Hitting the man in the chest, he flies across the room with a _swoosh!_ of air and the man crashes into the bar stool I was previously sitting at. Just as soon as the first card came hurling, another comes at another of the complaining drunks, the illuminated deck like tiny torpedoes sawing through the air one by one. I leap aside and take cover behind the stool, trying to go unnoticed.

One of the men involved in the "card" fight scuffles past me, holding his side as if he's been shot or something. He yanks a gun from the waist of his pants and points it at the man who has a hovering deck of cards over the table, springing up out of his hand like a coil, or a spring. It hurls across the room at his command, a grate coming from deep in his throat as he hurls across the room, knocking the gun from his hand as it skids across the floor. A burly man with a balding head and a pinstriped jacket picks it up and points it at the man. The bar is silent, all excepting the music blaring from an old speaker stereo.

The man with the illuminated cards drops the deck, however-many-are-left pickup. I can see his face from the wrungs of the bar stool, a creased forehead and a circuitous smile, shaggy hair falling into his florid face. "Don't you lay a finger on those cards, LeBeau."

He holds his hands up, though not seeming afraid of the gun in the other's hand. The card man is mute, a bizarre smirk across his face. Suddenly, a floodlit card rises into his hand as he flings it, the queen of hearts' face fiery angry as she takes him down. The gun goes off as he stumbles backwards, keeping his balance as he stumbles into the bar where I am hiding under. I can feel the sharp canines emerging from my gums, the tingling sensation extremely clear as the black claws under my fingernails start to curl into the wooden floor that is covered in dust.

With a bark, I leap forward on my strong back legs, landing atop the man as the gun goes off again. He yells, trying to push me off. "Mutant! Mel, you let damn mutants in here!" hollers the man I'm on top of to the bartender that served me only moments ago. He looks a little shocked at the fight going on in his bar, but his face starts to turn extremely red.

"Take your gun out of here. _Mutant – _I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Nicely once. And take care of your – pet."

The smirk widens on LeBeau's face as I scamper off the sweaty man, surveying the damage done by his transfixed cards. As the man I attacked starts to get up, LeBeau whacks him in the back of the head with a black staff, grunting as he grabs the scruff of my neck and drags me out the back.


End file.
